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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Cinderella, one past midnight, July 16 2004
With this season, the magical carraige that was "Buffy" turned back into a pumpkin. It's no surprise, really: five years is generally the point at which a show starts to show signs of exhaustion, and while season five was a definite thumbs-up, there were a a number of sure signs of trouble to come:1) Dawn. Adding a "baby" to a family is an old sitcom device to shake things up. It worked because of the clever writing and, obviously, Michelle Trachtenberg.
2) Glory. Upping the ante in the villain department every season is a good idea, but how do you top a God?
3) Spike. Changing a character's basic nature from evil to good (or good to evil) is an old soap-opera trick ("What, he's good now?")
4) Buffy. She died. Again. Since death is the ultimate sanction, undoing it takes the finality of death away, and stops us from caring if future characters are killed, because they can always be brought back. Season Six dealt with the problem of topping Glory by going the opposite route, and creating the Triad, three hapless nerds who in no way were worthy successors to the Master, Angelus, bad Spike & Dru, evil Faith, etc. It was often hilarious, but not really strong enough of an idea to sustain over a whole season. The Triad would have made a very funny three story arc, but beyond that, their limitations were obvious. It also made the fundamental mistake of pushing suspension of disbelief right over a cliff (that shark-headed gangster demon boss was just the worst idea in history....what were they thinking?). Also of betraying some signs of insecurity about the things they had done in season five and in six as well, and then trying to cover it up with clever humor, such as when the shrink tells Buffy that the retro-active addition of a sister (Dawn) into her alredy established family is a "ridiculous plot device" or that the Triad were "pathetic" villains. Tongue-in-cheek is one thing, farce is another. The episode where they allude that Buffy is in fact in a mental institution and everything you have seen in the previous 100 episodes is nothing more than the fever dreams of a schizo nut case is the classic "Bobby Ewing" mistake...."That last season? It was only a dream!" This was just insulting to the audience. I also felt the middle episodes suffered badly from the absence of Giles and from an overdose of Spike. Sometimes the best thing you can do with a great actor/character is hold him back a little bit, so as to leave the audience hungry. Spike is a great character and James Marsters a great actor, but sometimes less is more. This is not to say there were not some truly good moments in the season, such as Riley showing back up (didn't realize I liked this character until he left) the crotchey old Doublemeat Palace demon ("You may want to flail your limbs while you still have time"), the musical episode, the capricious and brutally violent way that Tara is killed off, or the fact that ordinary Xander finally got to save the world when all the super-powered people failed. But overall, season six left me feeling a bit like Buffy after her ressurection: down, disappointed, and ungrateful. Five out of six ain't bad.
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